


These stars will guide us home

by elareine



Series: Advent Calendar 2019 [16]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21825091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elareine/pseuds/elareine
Summary: Amsterdam is a beautiful city, Damian supposes, old buildings, canals, and so much smuggling. He’d think it prettier if it wasn’t for the group that brought him here.They are the sort of people his grandfather would have approved of; bound to each other and their common goal and not much else. A life does not mean anything if it is spend for the cause. There is very little left to connect Damian to who he truly is.Well. There is his phone.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Damian Wayne
Series: Advent Calendar 2019 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558834
Comments: 7
Kudos: 208





	These stars will guide us home

**Author's Note:**

> Advent calendar day sixteen: "All of the Stars" - Ed Sheeran.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city, Damian supposes, old buildings, canals, and so much smuggling. He’d think it prettier if it wasn’t for the group that brought him here.

They are the sort of people his grandfather would have approved of, bound to each other and their common goal and not much else. A life does not mean anything if it is spent for the cause. There is very little left to connect Damian to who he truly is.

Well. There is his phone.

Tim is his contact on this mission. Truthfully, Damian does not mind. He trusts the older man to have his back.

During the first few months, any contact is dangerous. Damian is closely monitored. Still, there is a secure chat app on his phone, and he makes occasional use of it to report. Tim always responds within minutes.

_The mission is going well. I was introduced to one of the less important smugglers today. His name is Aart Jansen._

_Files say low lever dealer. Not where we want to be, but a start._

Damian nods. That’s about what he expected.

Unexpectedly, Tim follows that up with: _& apart from work? _Maybe Dick is standing behind him.

_I find it difficult to occupy myself_. He is a diamond appraiser to these people. Damian has been trained well enough in the subject to pass, but his intellect remains unchallenged, and the slightly-downtrodden façade he’s meant to keep up the rest of the time does the rest.

_How’s tv?_

Damian snorts. _No_.

_Hey it’s a good distraction!!_

_Too much Disney._

_id have thought you’d go for the talking animals_ 🐕 🐴 🦁

_Animals don’t talk. That’s the point._

_Spoilsport_ is followed by: _go read a book then_

_I am._ Damian allows himself a tiny grin.

_what are you reading then?_

_The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran._ _A classic._

Damian waits for an answer, a snide remark about being snobbish, perhaps, but there’s nothing until a terse _gotta go_ arrives. With a sigh, he goes back to his book and tries not to worry.

_so I read a few chapters_

Damian blinks at the text. It takes him a moment to remember what Tim is talking about; even longer to decide on what to answer. _Did you like it?_

_‘Your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.’ <<< Bruce should read that_

_He has. It has not helped him._

Tim ignores that. _Is the idiom close to Arabic?_

_Yes._ It’s one of the reasons Damian loves this work. _The author was Lebanese and came to the US._

They keep talking about it, sharing their thoughts as they read over the days to follow. Eventually, Damian scrounges up the courage to text Tim: _It’s nice to talk about it with someone while I read._

When the answer arrives, it’s not what Damian expects. _You know we can get you out anytime, right? It wouldn’t be a failure._

Of course it would be. To have come so far and abandon the mission for something as negligible as homesickness… who does Tim think Damian is?

Damian does not reply, and Tim seems to drop it.

Six days later, there is something in the mail. Damian thinks it’s one of the countless government forms he’s had to fill out ever since he arrived; that’s how well the forgery’s been committed.

There is a form inside. There’s also a picture of his family, taken before Damian left. It was Dick’s birthday, Damian remembers; he made everyone go out for dinner and wear some stupid party hats. At the time Tim took the picture, Steph had decided to get into a chopstick war with Jason over the last dim sum, never mind that they were at an all-you-can-eat restaurant.

Damian stares at himself laughing and wills that feeling back.

“Is it safe to talk?”

Damian considers the question. It is made complicated because he wants the answer to be ‘Yes’ so badly.

“I think,” he says carefully, “they are lessening their surveillance. I am not followed home or during the day unless I leave the city. There have been no new bugs. And I have re-routed this conversation to make it appear like I’m talking to a French student I have been talking to at the art museum.”

“They will approve of that,” Tim says, and Damian tries not to feel gratified at the near-praise. “It will give them something to blackmail with.”

“Of course, she is actually from Poland, merely traveling through Paris.”

That gets him a laugh. “I would have expected nothing less.”

So they talk. Sometimes, late at night for Tim and too early for Damian, they watch movies together. Turns out, Damian likes Disney movies a lot better when Tim takes them apart the entire time.

There’s a video in his inbox. Judging by the timestamp, it was sent sometime at 8 a.m. in Gotham. That’s practically before bedtime for Tim, Damian thinks wryly.

He clicks play.

“Shh,” someone says. The room is dimly lit, but Damian can make out shapes on the couch. There’s a glint of red. Jason?

With near-silent footsteps, Tim (because who else) moves closer. That’s indeed Jason, obviously asleep on the couch, sitting up with his helmet still on and head tilted back. Duke is sitting next to him, head slumped onto Jason’s chest. That cannot be comfortable with all the plating, surely? On Jason’s other side, Steph and Cass are lying tightly intertwined, their heads resting on his thighs.

The camera draws back and moves on. Damian is impressed with how steady Tim managed to keep it. He must have some experienced in film-making, or perhaps photography.

The kitchen door is the next one to open. “Alfred, say hi to Damian!”

The butler looks up from where he’s forming scones. “Hello, Master Damian. I think you will be pleased to find that your newest… acquisition… is settling in quite well.” Tim zooms in on the black kitten hiding behind the bowl of dough. As he leaves the room, he whispers: “He loves her. I have it on good authority that she sleeps on his chest.”

There’s silence for a moment as Tim moves through the corridors, through the grandfather clock and down a path Damian could take in his sleep.

“And now, the grand finale,” Tim announces, “the Batman reveals himself!”

The camera turns to Bruce… who is very much scowling. Or, well, trying to, as one convincingly one can when one has Dick Grayson leaning on your shoulder, snoring and definitely leaving some slobber. Damian knows the feeling. Dick occasionally keeps going for so long that he’ll konk out on the nearest warm body, still clad in his uniform.

“Oh, no! Abort, abort, abort!” There’s some dramatic clatter, the camera falls down and then turns off. Damian guesses it’s some reference to a horror movie he hasn’t seen.

It’s silly, but Damian cannot stop himself from smiling for the rest of the night.

They text more and more often and talk on the phone almost every night, even if it’s just a quick check-in. Still, there is a longing in him. Tim has sent him pictures and videos, has talked to him for hours, but Damian has not seen his face in six months. That seems intolerable, now.

So Damian draws.

It’s a good one, he thinks. Tim, holding his camera, only half-visible but so glaringly alive. Damian didn’t realize how much he looks at Tim before he drew every strand of his hair from memory.

(Does it still look like that? Are there any new scars to join the faint one under Tim’s eye and the ones lacing through his scalp? Damian wants to know and does not know how to ask.)

He knows when Tim receives it because there are no texts for almost twenty hours. Then he gets a call.

Tim’s voice is carefully neutral. “You sent me a drawing.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“It is a thank-you,” Damian offers, “and… an apology.”

“Oh,” Tim says as if he expected something else. He doesn’t ask what Damian is apologizing for. They both know all too well. But he does tell him: “It’s beautiful.”

It feels like crossing a river. Damian likes it.

Tim sends more photographs through their secure chat after that. Some are frame-worthy, some are the worst (best) kind of candid. When Damian tries to reciprocate, he does it the easiest way he can think of: He sends Tim a picture of his poffertjes.

_waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant_

Damian offers _I could teach you how to make them_ without thinking.

_Seriously? :D I’ll call you in fifteen_

He meant ‘When I come back,’ but… this will have to do. Seeing Tim on the screen, trying desperately to heat the cooking fat to the right temperature as he plops the sticky dough in, is enough to make up for not being able to touch him.

It’s the first time they do a video call, but it’s not the last.

When Tim has to leave on a mission of his own for a week, he leaves Damian with the link to the surveillance cameras surrounding the place he’s staying at. Damian doesn’t worry about him, precisely—doing so would be foolish, since Tim has more than proven himself capable—but it makes him feel better to watch him walk past at least once a day, nonetheless.

Damian does not experience nightmares often. When he does, they’re short and very violent.

“Damian?” Tim’s voice is worried, as it should be. Damian texted him _Good night._ barely an hour ago.

“I’m fine,” Damian manages to grind out.

Tim gets it immediately. “I’ll switch on video, okay?”

Damian knows he looks a mess. He says, “Yes,” nonetheless.

“Hey,” Tim says softly when he comes into view. “You wanna tell me about it?”

Damian shakes his head, and Tim… talks. About everything and nothing. What he and Kon got up to on his last visit to Metropolis. Steph’s new fashion fad (it’s green, and it does not work with her skin at all.) How Bruce rounded up one criminal organization and accidentally crashed the mayor’s gambling den during the proceedings.

Eventually, Damian nods, and Tim trails off with a smile.

It’s late afternoon in Gotham, but Tim curls up on his bed and carefully places the phone against a pillow so he and Damian can still look at each other. There’s an intensity in his gaze that Damian doesn’t completely understand, not yet, but he likes it.

His eyes fall shut when Tim’s do. To his surprise, the sound of Tim’s gentle breaths actually lets him drift back to sleep.

Tim starts a list. Things like ‘check out that new Chinese place on 32nd street’ and ‘watch _Into the Spiderverse’_ go along with ‘beat you with my new staff.’ He encourages Damian to fill it out, too, and he adds ’take Ace Jr on a walk’ and ‘make Jason recite Shakespeare.’

One day, there’s a new item on a list. ‘Go on a date with you.’

Not once in his life did Damian think he would come to value a grocery list app this much.

Tim sends him a sweater that smells of him. Damian wears it as he wraps up the book he wants them to read next. There’s an illustration on the first page—two hands reaching out, linking their pinkies across the distance. He drew it hoping it will say everything he can’t tell Tim yet.

A few more weeks and Damian will take that plane home. He’ll say it in person, then.


End file.
